Supreme Court rulings lowering the stop standard enabled aggressive drug enforcement

Evidence

One important but underappreciated factor is a series of legal rulings that granted law enforcement greater powers, which were then used to more aggressively enforce drug laws. There are many such rulings but three are particularly relevant for explaining racial disparities in drug sanctioning. First, the Supreme Court ruled in Terry v. Ohio (1968) that police officers can lawfully stop and question individuals who raise “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity, and if the individual appears dangerous, police may pat down or frisk the individual’s outer layer of clothing. This standard of reasonable suspicion is a decidedly lower evidentiary standard than “probable cause,“—the standard for an arrest. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1065

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the legal distinction between Terry’s ‘reasonable suspicion’ (stop standard) and ‘probable cause’ (arrest standard), a distinction central to the whole chapter’s argument.
• XREF: connects to: Warren Court rulings federalized welfare and removed punitive behavioral rules — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 225